Past Events

Thinking About Almost Everything - London Launch

19th May 2009, 19:15 to 21:30, The British Academy, Carlton House Terrace, London

The Durham University book Thinking About Almost Everything, edited by IAS Directors Professors Ash Amin and Michael O’Neill, will be launched at an intimate evening reception at the British Academy on Tuesday 19 May 2009, thanks to the Durham University Society Association for Durham Alumni.

The event will centre around a lively and thought-provoking discussion chaired by renowned broadcaster, author and Durham University alumnus George Alagiah OBE. The discussion will trace the genesis, aims and value of the book, and give a flavour of its contents by focusing on some fundamental questions relating to our futures. Tickets for the event sold out in 48 hours.

Subtitled “New ideas to light up minds” the book contains over 60 life-shaping topics by leading academics at Durham. Through its short and elegantly written essays placed together in unusual thematic groupings, the book sparkles with the energy of fresh and original thinking. Thinking About Almost Everything is written by many of Durham University's leading scientists, literary scholars, historians, musicologists, geographers, philosophers, archaeologists, anthropologists and more.

The book claims a special place for ideas, arguing that they provide a vantage point and can help us understand the best ways of shaping the world we inhabit. The ideas in Thinking About Almost Everything are laden with the potential, for example, to generate belief in the power of art to improve health, science to extend life or sight, religion to temper extremism, feeling and irrationality to work with reason.

For further details of how to purchase the book visit: www.dur.ac.uk/thinking/